Incoming Missile. Take Cover. This is not a drill.

We have all seen pictures of the hurricane damage in Puerto Rico. A month after the storm 80% of the island is without power and people are drinking from streams. Banking is unavailable to most people and fuel is in critically short supply. People are still struggling to survive.

It is only a matter of time till a similar storm hits Oahu. Oahu is 3 times as far from resupply as Puerto Rico. Oahu is surrounded by deep, deep, deep ocean. The advice to leave our island is not going to work any better here than it did in Puerto Rico.

You cannot depend on Government help. Our Government will be overwhelmed trying to get our basic infrastructure repaired.

Are you prepared to live completely off the grid with no access to grocery stores, banks, gas stations and without electricity and no water? If you have health issues do you have a backup supply of medicine, oxygen, and whatever else you need to live? How will you handle your human waste and other sanitation problems?

How well you can prepare depends on your income. The poorest amongst us will be hit the hardest.

Our community can do a lot to prepare for the next big storm:

We are forming a non-profit corporation whose mission will be to provide support to Windward emergency preparedness projects.

We need to inventory buildings in our community that can serve as post-storm shelters for people who have lost their homes.

We need an inventory of heavy equipment that can be mobilized to help clear roads.

We need to know what restaurants can prepare meals without electricity.

We need to know who in our community needs special medical services.

We need CERT trained teams that can help in neighborhood recovery

We need a way for CERT Teams to communicate with Dept of Emergency Management.

There is a lot of work to do to make Koolaupoko a truely resilient community. Do you want to help? Fill out the form below to join us and get your free go-kit checklist.

All our single wall homes will be rendered unlivable in a Category 3 hurricane. Do you have friends whose home will survive and who you can live with? I don’t and I’m going to have to have shelter till my home can be rebuilt. Do you have a tent or other shelter your family can live in for an extended time?

In Hawaii, we live with a risk of hurricanes, earthquake, and in some areas tsunamis, wildfires, flash floods, and lava flows. Of course, man-made disasters have to be considered. Oahu is a prime target for a nuclear attack. It is also a soft target for terrorists.

When you evaluate risk you need to look at how bad the damage will be and how likely the event is to occur. Then you need to decide what you want to do about it.

The better prepared we are the faster and more comfortably we can respond. If we have a work from anywhere income that will continue whether we work or not we can recover quickly. If we depend on a single job and that business is destroyed we will be in trouble. Our resilience, our ability to recover from any disaster, depends on our personal preparedness, the resilience of our income and how prepared our community is to repair the damage to our community infrastructure.

DO NOT DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT HELP. Your Government will be overwhelmed with infrastructure repair. The will be concentrating on repairing our harbors and airports and making major roads passable. The Red Cross will open as many shelters as they have volunteers to manage but there is an extreme shortage of shelters. Reinforced concrete structures provide safe shelter. If your home is safe as a shelter, plan to shelter in place or with friends.

Know what to do to protect yourself and your family. Take Citizens Emergency Preparedness Training (CERT) offered by the City and County of Honolulu Department of Emergency Management or on Neighbor Island by your County Fire Department. Then team up with your community preparedness committee so you will be prepared to help your neighbors once your family is safe.

Be prepared with the supplies you need to survive without going to a store or a bank for a month.

There is a critical shortage of trained Red Cross shelter managers. How many shelters the Red Cross can open depends on how many trained shelter managers they have. Being a shelter manager assures you that you and your family will have space in a shelter.

The Red Cross has identified shelters for about 30,000 people. Those shelters will fill fast. If you live in a single wall home, ask friends who live in a concrete reinforced building if you can shelter with them. If you work in a strong structure ask the boss if you and your family can shelter at work. You will be available to help clean up after the storm.

The Red Cross is conducting shelter training.

THESE CLASSES ARE FOR YOU!!!

Next week Saturday, June 10, is your chance to get prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. These classes are extremely important for shelter volunteers, and anyone who wants to know what really goes on in a shelter.

SHELTER OPERATIONS SIMULATION – June 10 – 9 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Food provided at this “HANDS ON” skills based simulation.Participants work in teams that rotate through three skills stations based upon the four phases of sheltering- resourcing,opening,operating,and closing the shelter. YOU MUST TAKE SHELTER FUNDAMENTALS ONLINE PRIOR TO ATTENDING THIS COURSE.

These classes will only be offered this year on June 10 or July 22, but I encourage you to take them now,rather than waiting. After all, if a hurricane strikes, Red Cross will need to be providing actual shelter, not shelter classes.

TO REGISTER: Log in to Volunteer Connection https://volunteerconnection.redcross.org/ Go to “My Shifts” Click on Disaster Cycle Services Training Oahu Click the register button to the far right,next to the classes you wish to attend.

Kahalu’u-Kaneohe Hazard Awareness and Response Program

Community Planning for Quick Recovery

We held our last Kaneohe/Kahaluu Hazard Awareness And Response Program on November 24. We’ll skip

Hurricane Iniki from Space

December and the next class will be on January 26 at the LDS church near King school.

Tony Reynes, meteorologist at the Pacific Hurricane Center, discussed severe weather and specifically how tropical storms can impact Hawaii. His responsibility is to provide timely warnings of approaching severe weather. Information is provided the public through television and through the NOAA weather radio system. He strongly recommended that everyone purchase a weather radio that can be charged by both the sun and by cranking.

It’s important to everyone know the difference between a hurricane watch in a hurricane warning. A watch indicates that severe weather can impact the islands within 24 to 36 hours. Everyone should have at least seven days supplies needed to be independent of any store. When you hear a severe storm warning check your supplies and make sure your go-kit is ready to take with you in case you need to evacuate.Continue reading

Scientists tell us we are entering the age of the sixth mass extinction. Will that extinction include the human race? It could. This is not a problem of the far distant future. My great-grandchildren will face a world far different than the pleasant planet we live in today.

We are not dealing with science fiction. We are facing science fact.

Billions of people will be displaced by rising seas. People will fight for scarce water and food. Rising temperatures will create more tension between people. Storms and droughts will be more severe. Ocean acidification will disrupt ocean food chains and destroy the food supply of billions of people. Famine and disease will ravage the earth.

In the 25 July 2014 issue of Science we are warned:

“We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown about this “Anthropocene defaunation”; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.” http://bit.ly/1zqF45Y

Is it any wonder scientists have trouble communicating with the general public. Translated, that quote means human beings are polluting the earth at a rate that is causing extreme changes in the earth we depend on to survive. We do not know the full impacts of what we are doing, but we do know they are bad.

Our only hope is for people worldwide to come together with one voice and demand our Governments address the core problems of population growth, unsustainable demand on the resources the earth can provide and the impacts of pollution. Governments will not take action unless they are forced to do so by their people. Governments deal with current problems and at best have 5 year plans.

There is a yawning chasm between public opinion and scientific reality. 97 percent of scientific papers on global warming and climate change agree that climate change is caused by human activity. Less than half the American people believe their is a scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity. http://bit.ly/UIKU2Q. Unless that perception changes, there will be little public support to curb greenhouse emissions.

We need a plan to care for the earth to the seventh generation. Individually, we can vote with our wallets against polluting corporations. We can support legislators who understand the problem and will work to minimize pollution and mitigate the effects of climate change. We can do all we can do to reduce our personal carbon foot print.

Also we must accept the fact we must be prepared to take care of ourselves and our family.

You need the supplies to deal with inevitable disruptions in supply chains. And, you need the financial resources to deal with the crises in our lives.

Personal resilience requires us to have the knowledge we need to live productive, purposeful lives. Financial resilience, based on multiple sources of recurring income, makes our personal resilience possible. People who are living pay check to paycheck and struggling to survive can not be resilient.

I donʻt subscribe to the theory that each person must look out for themselves. Of course, our first responsibility is to our family, but we are also obligated to help each other.

Our hope for the future lies in small groups of people working together to solve local problems and coordinating their efforts globally. Governments around the world have proven themselves unable to deal with the problem. Only grass roots efforts can change public opinion and bring pressure on governments to change their ways.

WHAT IS CERT?
A corps of trained volunteers who would activate themselves immediately after a disaster to assist their families, neighbors, and communities until first responders can reach affected areas.

Hawaii is subject to tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic activity, flooding, and even tornados. BE PREPARED for the next disaster!

KAILUA CERT
After completing the CERT training, join the Kailua CERT Team the 3rd Tuesday of each month and BE PREPARED for the next disaster. Meetings are in the basement auditorium of Castle Hospital

For more information and training dates visit: http://www.honolulu.gov/demvolunteers/cert.html